The mild weather from earlier this week, when this picture was taken on Tuesday on the lakeshore in Toronto, is set to return in time for the weekend. And umbrellas probably won’t be needed with the only precipitation in the forecast, at least for the GTA, being a 30 per cent chance of showers for Saturday afternoon.
‘RISING PRETTY RAPIDLY’: It’s about to get warm again as we head into the weekend with possible record-setting temperatures for Monday, according to Environment Canada
The widespread return of warm weather is being caused by 'yet another low pressure system tracking across northeastern Ontario and dragging warm air southeast of it'.
The mild weather from earlier this week, when this picture was taken on Tuesday on the lakeshore in Toronto, is set to return in time for the weekend. And umbrellas probably won’t be needed with the only precipitation in the forecast, at least for the GTA, being a 30 per cent chance of showers for Saturday afternoon.
Southern Ontario’s mid-week deep-freeze is about to end as fast as it came roaring in, with warm weather forecasted for Friday into the weekend, with possible record-setting temperatures on Monday, according to Environment Canada meteorologist Peter Kimbell.
“It’s rising pretty rapidly to 8 C on Friday, 9 C Saturday, and 9 C again on Sunday,” said Kimbell, using Pearson airport in Mississauga as a frame of reference.
Monday could see another round of high-temperature records broken, with Pearson airport forecasted at 13 C. Other communities could be even warmer, with predicted highs of up to 21 C for Windsor, 17 C for Hamilton and 15 C for both Ottawa and Niagara Falls.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
The previous record high temperatures for those communities for March 4, listed by Environment Canada, are 13.3 C for Pearson/Mississauga (in 1974), 19.1 C for Windsor (in 1983), 15.6 C for Hamilton (in 1974), 14.4 C for Niagara Falls (in 1974) and 10 C for Ottawa (in 1965).
There’s no active weather in the short-term forecast, Kimbell said.
“For the GTA, it’s pretty quiet until 30 per cent chance of showers on Saturday and then it’s quiet after that through the weekend.”
The widespread return of warm weather, he explained, is being caused by “yet another low pressure system tracking across northeastern Ontario and dragging warm air southeast of it.”
“Basically it doesn’t really end until possibly Wednesday, and even then we’re forecasting a high of 8 C (at Pearson), so the warm just continues to push through behind the big storm that we had yesterday,” he said.
The big storm he was referring to on Wednesday, that brought in the cold weather that we’re experiencing now, put an abrupt midday end to record or near-record temperatures for much of southern Ontario.
At Pearson in Mississauga, the 16.5 C temperatures shattered the previous mark for the day of 11.1C set back in 1954.
He didn’t have Pearson’s all-time high for February immediately at hand, but he noted that the all-time high at a particular downtown climate station for Toronto was 17.7 C set in 2017 on Feb. 23.
He termed the temperature drop from 16.5 C midday Wednesday afternoon to the low of -5.8 C to end the day “pretty impressive.”
